Sunday, July 27, 2014

Requiem: A Song of Memory*

When I lost my baby, it was as though everything that was possible ended. When my mother had died, I felt that my
naïve thoughts about health were in the past.
It did not matter if you never abused your body, it didn’t matter how
well you ate or how full your heart was of forgiveness, death could come for
you and there would be no reason to it.
It just came. And leaves a trail
of heartbreak in its wake.

Even so, when the busyness and expansion of pregnancy occurs, the
complete immersion into existing for another, it never occurred to me that the
person for which the pain of being split wider was happening would actually
never appear.

And what you have left is
space--deep interior space filled with both parts real and unreal, of blood and
sorrow. Of tissue and loss, of pain in rhythm with metallic air and grief.

When I tell people I have lost a baby, there is usually
pain and compassion in their glance. Then, "Is it your first?"
“No,” I say, “I have three children.” Then there is
tightening, an actual vice like gripping in the very air and a coldness.
"Well, you should be grateful for the children you have then."
I nod and am ashamed. How dare I expect more? How dare I
complain of loss when I have riches already?

Miscarriage is a
terribly insufficient word for what I have experienced. It means, first, “corrupt or incompetent
management;especially: a failure in
the administration of justice,” and second, “spontaneous expulsion of a human
fetus before it is viable and especially between the 12th and 28th weeks of
gestation.”

When I became a mother, and for me it
happened as

soon as the possibility appeared blue or pink as a line tearing
through paper in its haste to be known, my instinctual duty is to protect from
harm. And with each loss, I felt extraordinary failure. And a shadow of deep fear. Both were exacerbated by comments that
ranged from the seemingly innocuous to the downright knife woundingly fierce. The voices are loud and they crowd
around me, people who care for me and people who could care less and all those
in between:

“It was God’s will.”

"Why do you need to push

this at your age?"

"You have three children, be grateful."

"You are too old, something in

your body has changed.

Stop doing this."

"You have three healthy children, be happy."

"You are unbelievably selfish.

Do you have any idea how

many children are out there

waiting to be adopted?"

"Listen to your body, it

just cannot do it."

"You cannot have a healthy

baby at your age. The chances

are a million to one."

"Just be happy with the family you do have. A lot of people don't have that."

"Just stop already.

So many people

would kill for just one baby."

"No one should have more than 2 children. The population is out of control."

"Wow are you so desperate

for a girl that you'd just

risk your life?"

"You need to pray more, and listen more and ask for
forgiveness from God."

The last one was from a family member on my husband's
side. Most of these comments resonate in my head, but the last one
implied that I didn't pray, that I don't listen and that it was something
intrinsically wrong in my character that led to my child's death. And
that, my friends, could not be further from anything that I know or am.

Maybe some of the comments that swirl around my saddened
brain are meant to be kind, concerned for my health rather than aiming at my
intention. I

sayinggoodbye.org

don't know. What I do know is that somewhere in the
space between of not being and having lies an emptiness so vast and profound, I
find that I am lost in it. That space holds my grief and it is the space
I enter to be silent and hold my loss, because in the eyes of the world, I have
no right and no claim to sorrow.

My answers are simple:

I know I am older.

We are grateful beyond measure for the three children
whose lives are ours to guide.

We feel our family isn't complete.

We aren't feeling called to adopt.

We have the resources and ability to raise another child.

We are not seeking extraordinary measures or taxing anyone’s
resources including our own.

Has it been this way for you? Maybe not about a child, but
about something else? A loss that splits you but cannot be shared because
the tolerance in the eyes of the world for that grief is shortened considerably
by circumstances that are not of your choosing?

If that has happened, and if no one else has told you. I want to say, how sorry I am for your
loss. How sorry I am that you are
hurting. How I wish there

was
something, anything I could do to offer you comfort. To reassure you that there will be time to smile, just that there
will be something in it that was never there before and will never be separate
from it again. To reassure you that
your grief is your right. And to remind
you that you are indeed a good and kind and deserving person.

Since it does not seem to be permissive to grieve a baby
who did not exist past the window of the womb, and because I can, I’m writing a
requiem of my loss for the world who may just not want to hear it:

I want you to know that as soon as I thought of you, I
wanted you. I felt fortunate to carry
you and to have you with me for whatever time we could share together. I want you to know that I planned for you and
sang to you and forced negative thoughts out of my head so that you would only
know the good and not anything that was tainted with doubt. I want you to know that despite all the
evidence to the contrary, no matter what others may have said or thought, your
parents prayed for you and wished only the best for you.

I want you to know that when I felt the pain of losing
you, when I saw the evidence all around me of your leaving me that I felt I
needed to know all of it. Because I
would never be able to hold you in this life, I wanted to feel you leaving me for
the next one. I follow your
development, and I always will. That I
know when we meet again, and because “God will manage better than that,” you
will not be a stranger; you will still be my baby. And that I think of you.
Every day. Thanks for choosing
me to be your mom, I’m so grateful for you.

I know that our family’s story does not end here; it will
continue on and be well. And I know
that as I walk with your brothers, and hold their hands in mine, that I feel
the shadow of your arms in theirs.

That
I still carry you, and that our adventures include you, because it wasn’t just
my body that expanded to allow room for you to grow, my heart did as well. And that stays just the same. From now until we see each other again. In love and justice, Mommy.

*For Dan, Aley and Lily, we’ll see you on the
other side. x*Images above may be subject to copyright. Original artists' names could not be found for attribution.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

"Not One of Us": An Open Letter about Women, Friendship and How Social Media Can Break Us—Part One

Dear Friend,

Do you remember the girl in school that had a trail of
followers? Maybe she was wearing the
coolest jeans, or had the “it” bracelet or the sparkle pen. Maybe she had the matching set of something,
or the sweater that everyone wanted.
Maybe she had the

heart of your secret crush and no matter what you
tried, no matter how you did you hair, the backpack you bought, the lunch your
mom packed, you were never, ever, ever going to get invited to her table. You were always going to be on the outside
at recess, while they looked over at you and giggled, with this girl goddess
sitting on top of a lunch table, smiled serenely.

That cast? That
scenario? It doesn’t change. No matter how old you are or how much you’ve
traveled, it doesn’t evolve. There is
always going to be the leader of the pack and if you are the woebegone that
doesn’t meet its criteria, you will always, always be on the outside.

Honestly, I did not start out wanting to write about
this—I feel like it has been covered time and again by so many bloggers on
social media. I wanted to throw a
couple recipes your way since I was awol last week, I wanted to write something
on dementia because my father, well, it has been more than trying of late. I wanted to write about how no matter how
much, how long and how well you love your kids, there is more than one day that
they are the most trying, crazed, alien beings you never, ever want to lay
claim to. I wanted to write about those
things, and I probably will, but yesterday I met with a sweet friend of mine.
And I don’t get to see her nearly enough.
She has a spine of steel under such warm and softly understanding eyes. We had our children meet together at the
local pool and we talked and what came out of the conversation was this: the
cliques

and the Queen Cliquesters. And
those on the outside and how in the world to continue to navigate the
schoolyard and four square when we are all grown up and should know a lot better.

Because there is a reason it is covered again and again
and AGAIN. It still exists. Somehow the schoolyard princess bullies just
grow up and wield power again. And
maybe it isn’t that girl, maybe it was the little girl in glasses sitting in a
corner who had the misfortune of doing something that made

somebody mad who
grew up wanting “in” and getting it by building a wall of women around her who
would hold her up because she never learned to do it herself.

I was scrawny with wild curly hair and brown. At a time when there weren’t kids who looked
like me everywhere, and even if there were, they weren’t Indian Syrian Christians. Our histories and
communities were vastly different because of that. Of course I didn’t know that then, and I couldn’t articulate it
like that, all I knew was that I was different—and not in a good way. Because of that in my predominantly white
school, because my parents spoke with an accent and because I wasn’t
particularly good at sports, I was picked on quite a bit—rejected for Girl
Scouts when my mother turned to me full of feeling of parental failure, a look
I only understand now, after getting off the phone saying that Jenny Smith’s
mother had mocked her accent. Life was
not easy at my elementary school.

I think the formation of otherness and outsiderness begins
there. In this space of the
schoolyard. The vast criticism that is
so brilliantly bald with children who say exactly what they think, know the
viciousness with which it will hurt, and keep propelling those verbal grenades
over and over and over again. Lee was the bully in my schoolyard in those early years, with curly dirty
blond hair and pink cheeks and friends with the girls who were not ungainly and
othered as I was. She also made sure I
knew that I was outside that circle.

I have boys, but there have been moments like these for them, and my friends who have daughters say the cliques have worsened, and the
expectations are far more precise and because of social media, the maliciousness and pointedness has become almost too much for them to bear and walk and
be. It is a lifetime commitment to
instill in a child the presence of mind to walk as who they are without any
kind of qualifier. It means a deep
resourcefulness and courage that is not innate. Because I do know what happens when this doesn’t take place. The girls grow up, and those feelings of
exclusivity and otherness, respectively, continue on with them from the
schoolyard all the way to the playgrounds of our children.

Do you remember the book that launched popular fiction
writer, Emily Giffin’s career? It is
called, Something Borrowed. And it’s
about a young woman, Rachel who sleeps with her best friend, Darcy’s
fiancé. On the surface, it is
appalling. A code of women and line of
trust that is so broken. But Giffin
relates a backstory that overcomes it by showing how Dex (the handsome,
wealthy, well-

connected fiancé), was attracted to Rachel first, that she felt
unworthy to be courted by him because her best friend was more attractive,
popular and interesting than she was.
She had lived in Darcy’s schoolyard shadow for years, getting cosseted
protection from the verbal barbs and anger from other girls not permitted into
Darcy’s world. And, to some degree,
Rachel was tired of being her foil.

I cheered Rachel on, despite this huge moral failing, and
I suspect a lot of other readers did too, because of the underdog role she
played that was so quintessentially familiar to so many. No one wanted to see the mean girl win; for
once, they wanted to see the soft, rounded, “wheat germ haired,” smart girl get
the guy. When Rachel does, it seems
like a cosmic wrong is righted.
Giffin’s subsequent novels have not appealed to me much as a reader, but
she is enormously popular and often she seems to hit on the fragile pulse of
women’s lives. That goes a long way
toward relatability. But when I look at
this, the coming together of Dex and Rachel, the continued affair against a
friend, no matter how vapid or self absorbed, it is just wrong. And where have we gone wrong as a female
audience that we applaud it?

resurfacing of the seam point of who I thought I was and who I
actually am.

And, for a long time before the self-renovation began, I
was a McJudgerson that would put any of those mean women to shame. I didn’t run a crew, but my mind was as
vicious as any old episode of Project Runway with Michael Kors as judge.

I would assess a woman by her shape which if
it was over rather than under, made me believe that she wasn’t working hard enough
on being healthy and just was gluttonous and lazy, her hair, the frizziness and
the inconsistency of color that showed me that she either wasn’t aware of her
appearance or couldn’t afford its maintenance.
Her clothing which could reveal a distinct lack of designer label which
meant that she either couldn’t afford where I shopped and that meant we were
from vastly different spheres. Her
nails, which may or may not be chipped or well polished, which spurred in me an
insecurity as mine have long been short, not able to grow past a point and
cuticles that would make any manicurist scream in frustration. Upon this assessment, I would determine that
this woman would not be in my circle, because by associating with her I would
be assessed by others to be accepting of her and that, I couldn’t have.

Now, before you completely dismiss me as one of the worst
women you have ever met, consider this: if I have been so unbelievably critical
of a woman I’ve never known, can you see how extraordinarily hard I have been
on myself?

The judgment above is equal parts absurd scrutiny and, had
I continued, the self-reflexive gaze of my own inadequacies that I have
absolutely placed on her. It seems to
me that these are the judgments, the daily picking of self and others that eat
away at our self esteem and confidence in ourselves, and, by extension our
ability to mother. With such careful
gaze directed outward, the antiseptic quality of the inward eye was impossible
to keep up—the clothing I wore, the hairstyle I kept, the stroller and diaper
bag I carried, the clothes my children wore, my nails, all of it, all of it
would be next to impossible to maintain even if I had been able to do it all
the years before I had children. I remember lamenting to my friend and teaching partner about how hard it was to break into this group, how they did everything together, how I felt I was all wrong (and, mind you, I was so

wobbly because that's what a first baby does to you) and he said, "Good grief Sara, get away from these women! This white mommy mafia sounds terrifying." And for awhile, I did. My friends are not

Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. Adapted in 1975, 2004 for film

the least bit Stepford, they are all different shapes, sizes, experience levels and family groups, they bring a wealth of experience into my world and really, that's what I want for my children too, that their friends reflect combined differentiated experience and talent, not carbon copies of the same person.

It seems to me now, from the long distance of memory’s
backspin, that my preoccupation with

It always strikes, this knot of fear of rejection whenever
you feel the most vulnerable. Whenever
you aren’t sure of your steps and your place.
Often after you’ve had a baby, or gained weight or lost it, when you’ve
experienced a loss or had a major upheaval.
All of those moments are ripe for self-scrutiny and where you are most
fragile for the atmospheric drop in pressure that comes when you see the cliques
enter. And it doesn’t matter who they
are, does it? You know exactly who I’m
talking about. You need resilience and
belief in yourself to make sure you can stand up and walk tall among these
women.

The beginning out of it is grace and truth. Are you really all the negative that swirls
in your brain? You’re not. The God that made you loves you just as you
are and you need to know that, own it and remember it. You extend grace so effortlessly to others
around you, pray for those who are hurting, offer comfort to those who need it,
bind wounds of friends and children but you refuse to allow that grace for
yourself.

So I am telling you, as I finally told myself, and have
had to hit pause, rewind and repeat:

You don’t need them.

You can manage.

You need to cut the weight of those who are making you feel small

out of your life.

Without that
amputation, no matter how long those voices have been around you and near you,
you will never have room to welcome or extend your arms to embrace the friends
that can help you navigate the new seasons in your life.

It’s going to hurt.
All forward movement, all change does hurt, at least a little. But sometimes saying goodbye to friendships
that do not feed you or sustain you needs to happen.

When other women who you thought you knew, begin to say
things to you that prick your skin and make you doubt yourself or the ways in
which you parent, consider why it bothers you.
And then depending on the answer, get rid of the person who is causing
you pain. You wouldn’t allow it to
happen to your child, would you? Why
are you enduring it yourself?

You are a strong person.
You are a capable mother. You
are a good friend. You are a consistent
person. You are trying and trying and
trying.

And that is enough.

Those same gut instincts designed to protect us from harm,
the fear factor that can keep us alive, are the same ones that can protect your
heart from hurt. If you feel the heat
rise in your face and the clench in your chest or the burn in your stomach,
it’s time to take decisive action and stop the pain rather than endure it. And this is counter-intuitive. Because as women we are expected to take
pain and manage it no matter what the cost.
We hold it in, worse still, think we deserve it and there is a negative
loop that runs in our brains that hold us hostage to the comments, ill meant or
not.

Consider this, I was in a Bible
study where we were readingLysa Terkeurst’s Unglued.In it she
writes, “Brain research shows that every conscious thought we have is recorded
on our internal hard drive known as the cerebral cortex. Each thought
scratches the surface much like an Etch A Sketch. When we have the same thought
again, the line of the original thought is deepened, causing what’s called a
memory trace. With each repetition the trace goes deeper and deeper, forming
and embedding a pattern of thought. When an emotion is tied to this
thought pattern the memory trace grows exponentially stronger” (22).

What?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay. So what this means is that there are negative
thoughts (or positive ones) that our own minds have created that create grooves
in our brains…. Grooves, not passing bruises or scratches that heal over
time, butgrooves,
picked over and over, wounds that will not heal.

These comments, this scrutiny by other women who are supposed to
be on your side—I mean you travel in the same circles, your children are in the
same grade, same class, you worship in the same place, so the differences seem
entirely outward—my fabulous Target pleather bag and your Kate Spade one, for
example. And to dismiss me just because
my workout gear says lululemon instead of Old Navy, is not only egregious it is
just plain old fashioned dumb.

These
aren't wholly impossible to ignore of course, these comments, I mean, we are
adults. But the scrutiny no, the rejection affirmed or otherwise from
female friends are like small ants who come out of nowhere and begin a sedate
crawl to spaces that you'd rather they not go. So that you're constantly
picking and searching for the invaders that have come to rest on your very skin
and try violently to stop their ascent and access to somewhere more serious and
provoking.

It begs the question: Do the bugs just like me or do I actually invite them?(Ponder this question, think about it, tell me your thoughts about it and stay tuned for Part Two of this lengthy love letter where we'll also talk about how to turn social media around so you can get your sea legs and continue to be as fabulous as I know you are. L, smh)

Leave it on the Mat: A Confession about Exercise, Health and
Chocolate

If only
that would take care of the whole post entirely! Listen, I’m not here to tell you what to do, you are smart,
capable and know exactly what you need to do.
I can only tell you my own story…about exercise. And it’s been definitely a hate-like-hate
relationship over the years.

My
husband has run the Boston Marathon twice.
Twice. He’s a natural gifted
athlete who played two (or was it three?) sports in college. He never went to the library. I mean, I don’t think ever. I’m only saying this as a means of prefacing
the fact that we are not a couple that works out together, or goes for runs
together or anything like that. I am
just grateful that our DNA mixed well together because otherwise my children
wouldn’t have a chance at all of ever playing anything at any time. And that’s not a good thing Martha.

I live
in a place where it is summer year round.
I cannot hide under or behind or even near a sweater. I cannot accumulate some insulation for the
oncoming winter. Shorts are a uniform
staple, remember? So if things aren’t
quite where they need to be, I cannot wish it or diet it or even detox it away
(how does one survive those by the way?).
I need to work out and modify my diet.
I know this, I know it, I do know.
And yet. This is what I think
about it.

But
remember, I told you about my mom? She
passed away from a rare cancer far too soon.
Sometimes I think if I can only make it to that magic age, I’ll be okay
somehow. Maybe I’ll live to see my kids
grow and grow. The likelihood of my
getting my mother’s particular cancer is exceedingly small. I do know though, that there are a whole
host of other illnesses that are waiting around the corner for me —and for
you—and chances are, they don’t care about the excuses from the day or the
party that you had to have a piece of cake or the fact that you ran that
day.Like heart disease, or type II
diabetes, or hypertension, or, yes cancer from all the environmental toxins
that we seem to readily consume day after day.
I sometimes scare myself thinking about it. The only real thing is that I want to be here. I lost my mom as an adult and it is

devastating. If it is in my power, I
have to make sure I am here for my kids.
So that brings me to exercise.

Lately,
I’ve been feeling my middle swell. And
it’s not a good feeling, because I was born with a wicked fast metabolism. I was scary skinny all my younger years and
teased mercilessly because of it. Just
a string bean. Then when I hit 30, it
slowed down to a trickle. I got my
familial curse of holding all my

weight in my middle. They call it being “apple shaped”—charming, isn’t it? And as I’ve gotten older, that helpful
genetic detail has now extended to my thighs.
Wonderous.

So I was
thinking about this. There was this
time, a few years back that I’d had enough, I’d had my third baby and was larger
than I’d ever been. I lost count of how
many times people asked me when my next baby was due. It was, well, tragic. One
day I just decided I was just going to try to workout. And I bought a couple of DVDs from those
celebrity trainers: Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper. I did them 6 days a week, building up to working out for 45
minutes to an hour each day. I cut out
sugar and flour. I reduced my portion
size. It took awhile but the numbers on
the scale started to fall backwards. I had kick started my metabolism all
right. And you know, people were nicer
to me. At stores, salespeople were
eager to help me. Seems like being
skinny now was much better than when I was a young girl. I was happy with the compliments too, but I
fell into a trap—I didn’t stop. I had
reached my goal weight that my doctor felt was a good target and I just kept
going. Cutting out only one day, so I
was working out 5 days instead of 6 and instead of the recommended 3 for
maintenance. And then a crisis hit, my
father was in trouble and I needed to help him. The anxiety and the stress were too great but I just kept
going. And you know what happened?

I had
horrible stomach pain and problems digesting food. My hair started to shed more than normal, and I had ulcers in my
mouth, right along the frenulum, the line of tissue that connects your tongue to
your mouth’s floor. My body was
screaming at me. I was horribly out of
balance. So I did what I think a lot of
people have done, I stopped. And now I
found myself here, having to start all over again. Because the DVDs weren’t cutting it this time, and I knew, I
knew, I knew it was going to be hard.
And it was going to take longer because I didn’t want to cut out
everything that made everything else taste better. But I was daunted. And I
was tired. And mini-chocolate donuts
are sooo good going down.

So what
do I do? I’m here. The kids are in school, I’m in class,
holding my water bottle, and I have the new cropped leggings I got from Old Navy
and an old tshirt that covers a discolored sports bra from Target. I have sneakers. They don’t have as much padding as I’d like, but they are dark
grey. I have a wonderful sweatband that
would not make Richard Simmons jealous, but it’s up there, wait until I get a
rainbow one. And I have my mat. And I see you. I doubt you’ll remember me, but I remember you. You’re in an exercise class, be it the
cardio one I take or the yoga, and you look like you’d rather be a million
miles away. I get it. I do.
And you’re probably shaking your head because when you looked me over
you saw my chicken legs and said you wished you had my problem. But the reasons we are in this class aren’t
so different. Maybe you want to lose
weight, you told me once at the end that maybe you shouldn’t have even tried
it. Maybe you want to feel better, and
you said all you felt like doing was just laying down. Maybe your doctor told you that you had to
start a fitness program, and you shared with me that you were worried about
what would happen if you didn’t.

The diet industry is a multi-billion dollar
one. There are so many methods, tricks,
pills and contraptions that guarantee pounds lost. There are self help books aplenty and if you remember, we have a
very popular show in the States called, Biggest Loser where contestants are
awarded for losing the most percentage weight.

I am no
fitness expert; I’m not a natural athlete.
I was the last picked for every single team. I fall over my own feet on a continual basis. I get no endorphin rush from running—I just
want to stop. I celebrated the day I
didn’t have to take phys ed in high school anymore and then I stupidly went out
for field hockey because my friends did and I thought I needed a letter. I should’ve done debate. Anyway, all I know is this, you need two
things to get healthy: movement and control.
That’s it. No magic secret. You need to burn more calories than you are
taking in. All the responsible books
and interviews all boil down to the same idea, burn more, consume less. Here’s the thing, you can tone it down after
you get where you need to be. You can
keep controlling your portion size, but if you really want those extra
calories, plan an extra workout to balance it out. But don’t deprive yourself, and don’t tell yourself you can’t
have something, because if you do, I think you’re setting yourself up to fail. Ever see exercise sayings on Pinterest? If you are the negative 1 % who haven’t here
are some popular (and, I think, ridiculous, images) :

I have
never ever seen my cardio teacher Erica, post anything like this on her group
FB page. Ever. She has never emphasized getting skinny as
being the panacea for all that ails you.
Her own philosophy is to feel better and that, in turn will help you
look better. She wants you
healthy. I have never seen my yoga
teacher Carolyn, discuss size or doing more.
She meets you where you are and encourages you to the point of stretch
not pain. Maybe these motivational
pinterest ripped fitness models truly inspire you, and if that does it, then
that’s great. But when I am confronted
with having a slice of cake after dinner when the scale and my shorts aren’t
where I need them to be, I’m not going to remember this woman. I will mutter very, very bad things about
this woman, decide I will never be like her anyway and then eat.the.cake.

In the
moments before class, whether it’s a cardio class or my yoga class, I
hesitate. The hour I am about to do
could be spent, I don’t know…writing?
And maybe my heart isn’t the reason, and maybe an unforeseen cancer
isn’t either, maybe it is just not feeling the squelching noise of my thighs when
I wear shorts is what it is, maybe it is that kind of vanity. But I hesitate, I do. Even when I can make it through a
class. Even though I know I will feel
better after it, I hesitate. I wonder
if it’s worth it when I just don’t see anything happening. But once I take that breath, pull the key
out of the ignition and get my stuff together, and set it down, once I look
around and see some looks that match my own of worry and apprehension, nervous
smiles exchanged, I can look in the mirror and just leave it. On the mat.

Right
there I put every piece of stress that I’ve got and the thoughts that burn in a
loop in my brain:

This is
never going to work anyway. Leaving it.

My son
will never, ever get anywhere with this, I am a failure as his mother and he
will never move out and do anything with his life except play insipid video
games. Leave it.

I don’t
know what happened but she is not talking to me anymore, what should I do? Leave it.

That “friend”
put me down in front of the whole Bible study yesterday. Gone.

My
husband’s frustrations with work are spilling over into my life even as I’m
trying to distinguish it from his. Stomping
on it.

My kid
didn’t get picked. Leave it.

My father
is getting worse and is mad at my very existence. Breathe it out.

My word,
I had no idea my behind was that large.
Enough.

How in
the world am I going to be in three places at once today? And why did I volunteer for snacks? Leave it.

I don’t
think I’ve got enough in the account to cover the field trip. Just for this hour. Just this one hour. Leave it. Work it out
here. Leave it here.

Whatever
you’ve got, allow it to drive you to finish that workout. Cast out every negative comment that has
lingered deep in your belly about what you look like. Concentrate only on your breath, your teacher’s instructions, for
that moment, just stay present only on what you’ve got to do in front of
you. When you hear her call your name
or say, “come on, you can do this” or “you are doing great” know that she
really is speaking to you.

We all
have stress. I don’t know what led you
to class, and truly I don’t care. You
belong here. And you are doing yourself
a huge disservice if you think you do not.
Every teacher out there worth her sweat will tell you that, I don’t need
to. They are there to help you get where
you want to be. And you know the only
thing you need to do to get there? Keep going. Talk to them when you need
encouragement. Be held accountable. And
most importantly--come back. It will
get easier, you will not always feel like your lungs are on fire or about to be
thrown up, your arms will be able to fully extend once more, your feet will not
ache. Come back. Come back and leave whatever you’ve got on
the mat.

And when
you finish your workout or your practice, take a breath and a moment as you
roll up your mat and know that you can walk out a little lighter. You are strong. You are amazing. Youcan
do this. Leave it all on the mat and
walk tall. You are worth it.

So how
about it? Want to join me? You can do it. I know you can, just keep showing up. And I will too.
Cheers. (By the way, you can
completely reward

yourself with one of the squares in this chocolate bar—it’s dark and
good for your heart, at $1.79, it’s a bargain.) xoxo

* this post is dedicated to my great exercise
teachers and friends, Erica and Carolyn, thanks for making me see the other side
even when it’s cloudy out.

What the story said...my reviews on goodreads

“You must understand, this is one of those moments.” “What moments?” “One of the moments you keep to yourself,” he said. “What do you mean?” I said. “why?” “We’re in a war,” he said. “The story of this war—dates, names, who started it, why—that belongs to everyone. [….] But something like this—this is yours. It belongs only to you. And me. Only to us” (56). This moment, in Téa Obreht’s lyrical first novel, The Tiger’s Wife, tells you the entirety of the story of love and loss, of memory, maps and war, of science, fables and imagined histories. The tale, set in a fictional Balkan province, is about the relationship between the narrator, Natalia and her grandfather who is a doctor. And the story involves the wars that have ravaged that area for years.

If you think back to the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, you may remember the horror and shock of those years of unending war. The bombing of a 400 year old bridge, the massacres, the deadening of Sarajevo. While none of these events are overtly, or even covertly, covered in the novel, their echo remains. This is a novel whose strength lies in the ability to translate myth and fable, to make the moments that seem almost unknowable known. The excerpt offered in the beginning of this review is an example of that, the Grandfather takes the young Natalia past curfew to witness the surreal site of a starving elephant being led on the city streets to the closed city zoo, the place of their weekly pilgrimages. During mercurial times, there was this moment of placidity and fantasy. The war which raged and continued and was irrational as wars are, there is the fantastical presence of an elephant sloping up the quiet neighborhood street. While Natalia frets that no one will believe her, her grandfather corrects her idea by telling her that history can be something personalized and intimate. Not meant to be shared by the world, but by those who you love and trust to see your vision. It makes sense, because when histories are challenged and threatened, documents concerning your birth, the death of your families are challenged or lost, history becomes something far more ephemeral. Far more illusory unless it is placed in the permanence of your own heart.

She begins Chapter 2 by saying, “Everything necessary to understand my Grandfather lies between two stories: the story of the tiger’s wife, and the story of the deathless man” (32). So it is between these poles of myth and story that we can locate the history of this narrator and her grandfather, both physicians, both straddling the line between science and home remedy. I could tell you at length about both, but that truly would be spoiling the journey of the story for you. But I will say that the language Obreht uses is so languid and lush, masterful and mindful that you begin to be seduced by it all. So reason, the questions of markings of slippery occurrences of war that do belong to the world that could ground the reader in the world Obreht is translating is lost because that is the moment she is NOT choosing to share. But here is the thing. I needed it. Even in a footnote or an afterward. I needed a timeline of the events that brought the destruction of these people to such impossibilities of existence. Because even though it is a public history, it is one I do not know well. It would be wrong to assume the knowledge on the part of a Western audience I think, it’s unfortunate that this is not a familiar landscape or language. I know, in the recesses of my mind I know the wars in the Balkans. The horrors, the rape camps of Bosnia, the destruction, the evacuation of Serbians…but I don’t know enough, not nearly enough to be lulled into this lush tale. A part of me refused to be completely seduced by it. Because I didn’t understand enough about it.

There is a way in which myth sustains us when horrors are too much. When person and home and identity fall away, and where you cannot locate your birthplace on a map, because it has been eliminated, what do you hold onto except your stories? As the author writes, “We had used a the map on every road trip we had ever taken, and it showed in the marker scribbling all over it: the crossed-out areas we were supposed to avoid…. I couldn’t find Zdrevkov, the place where my grandfather died, on that map. I couldn’t find Brejevina either, but I had known in advance that it was missing, so we had drawn it in” (16). Map lines, map dots, erased and redrawn because of war. How do you locate who you are, if you cannot really know where you are from? The erasing of history, of place, of belonging, of self is such a legitimate tragic legacy of war. So it is understandable that the novel moves between these two myths to bookend it, asking the reader to locate the grandfather and the narrator in its midst. I just think that the novel, which is a remarkable achievement for such a young writer, would have been that much more strong, viscerally, had it had the historical reference points it alluded to. That being said, though, it is a novel of quiet questions and loud answers and makes you wonder long after you’ve set it aside. Questions like, “What is the moment you have? The one you find that belongs to you? Who will you share it with and what familiar myth might you create?”